Voices Campaign

9th September 2016

Voices Campaign

Voices is our new campaign to highlight Hate Crime in Northern Ireland. The aim of the campaign is to encourage both the public and victims of Hate Crime to come forward and report it and help assist with any investigations.

Hate Crimes are any crimes that are targeted at a person beacuse of hostility or prejudice towards that person's:

Disability

Race or Ethnicity

Sexual Orientation

Religon or Beliefs

Transgender Identity

This can be committed against a person or property.

Voices is a series of short videos narrated by victims describing their own personal experiences of Hate Crime. The message is designed to encourage people to think about the impact hate crime incidents have on the victim and the long lasting physiological and emotional damage it can cause. The videos will be shared on our Twitter and Facebook accounts as well as the social media accounts of our partner agencies.

Leading the campaign Superintendent Paula Hillman said: "We hope the videos, which are narrated by victims describing their own personal and often very painful experiences of how they have been emotionally affected by hatred and discrimination, will encourage members of the public to come forward and tell us what they know about hate crime."

"We want to encourage people to think about the human impact of these wholly unjustified and unacceptable attacks and the long lasting physiological and emotional damage they can cause. There is absolutely no place in Northern Ireland for intimidation or threats and there is a collective responsibility on all parts of society to protect our most vulnerable countries."